Quantities and compositions of non-tritium radioactive waste are estimated for some current conceptual fusion reactor designs, and disposal of large amounts of radioactive waste appears necessary. Although the initial radioactivity of fusion reactor and fission reactor wastes are comparable, the radionuclides in fusion reactor wastes are less hazardous and have shorter half-lives. Areas requiring further research are discussed.

Four separate techniques for calibrating energy dispersive x-ray spectrometers are described. They include the use of (1) individual evaporated elemental thin-film standards, (2) nebulized multielement standard solution deposits to determine relative elemental sensitivity factors, (3) a semi-empirical approach to calculate relative elemental sensitivity factors, and (4) thick pure element disks. The first three techniques are applicable for a broad range of elements. The utilization of nebulized multielement standard solution deposits, along with an evaporated single element thin-film standard for absolute system calibration, is the most accurate method of the calibration techniques described.

Use of the Livermore x-ray streak camera to temporally record x-ray pinhole images of laser compressed targets is described. Use is made of specially fabricated composite x-ray pinholes which are near diffraction limited for 6 A x-rays, but easily aligned with a He--Ne laser of 6328 A wavelength. With a 6 ..mu..m x-ray pinhole, the overall system can be aligned to 5 ..mu..m accuracy and provides implosion characteristics with space--time resolutions of approximately 6 ..mu..m and 15 psec. Acceptable criteria for pinhole alignment, requisite x-ray flux, and filter characteristics are discussed. Implosion characteristics are presented from our present experiments with 68 ..mu..m diameter glass microshell targets and 0.45 terawatt, 70 psec Nd laser pulses. Final implosion velocities in excess of 3 x 10/sup 7/ cm/sec are evident.

Acoustic emission monitoring was used in hydrostatic experiments on flawed pressure vessels and thermal shock experiments on flawed cylindrical specimens. The results of the experiments are discussed.